Combining Philosophers

Ideas for Herodotus, Antonio Damasio and A.J. Ayer

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4 ideas

12. Knowledge Sources / A. A Priori Knowledge / 4. A Priori as Necessities
5198 We could verify 'a thing can't be in two places at once' by destroying one of the things [Ierubino on Ayer]
     Full Idea: It is possible to challenge the proposition 'a material thing cannot be in two places at once' empirically; if you destroy one object, the other should also instantly be destroyed if they are a single thing.
     From: comment on A.J. Ayer (Language,Truth and Logic [1936], Ch.2) by Virgil Ierubino - works
     A reaction: This leaves us having to decide whether the proposition is metaphysically necessary, or is empirical, or is tautological. This idea inclines me towards the view that it is empirical. Imagine two 'separate' objects which responded identically to stimuli.
12. Knowledge Sources / A. A Priori Knowledge / 5. A Priori Synthetic
2619 Whether geometry can be applied to reality is an empirical question outside of geometry [Ayer]
     Full Idea: Whether a geometry can be applied to the actual physical world or not, is an empirical question which falls outside the scope of the geometry itself.
     From: A.J. Ayer (Language,Truth and Logic [1936], Ch.4)
     A reaction: This is a key objection to rationalism by empiricists. You may say that geometry applies to your car, but your car may have been pulverised while you were talking. Why, though, did Einstein find non-Euclidean geometry so useful?
12. Knowledge Sources / A. A Priori Knowledge / 7. A Priori from Convention
5197 By changing definitions we could make 'a thing can't be in two places at once' a contradiction [Ayer]
     Full Idea: The proposition that 'a material thing cannot be in two places at once' is not empirical at all, but linguistic; ..we could so alter our definitions that the proposition came to express a self-contradiction instead of a necessary truth.
     From: A.J. Ayer (Language,Truth and Logic [1936], Ch.2)
     A reaction: This seems a striking anticipation of Quine's famous challenge to the analytic/synthetic distinction.
12. Knowledge Sources / A. A Priori Knowledge / 8. A Priori as Analytic
5204 To say that a proposition is true a priori is to say that it is a tautology [Ayer]
     Full Idea: To say that a proposition is true a priori is to say that it is a tautology.
     From: A.J. Ayer (Language,Truth and Logic [1936], Ch.4)
     A reaction: This is Ayer's splendidly clearcut anti-rationalism. However, one might concede that one cannot know a priori about remote possible worlds (though I'm not so sure), but still claim a priori extrapolations from our current experiences.